After ClayShore’s first show at Eddie’s almost a year ago, their lead singer Landon had proclaimed that this was where they’d get discovered. He’d used words like “fate” and “destiny” said that Eddie’s had “good vibes” and there was no denying that the venue had an energy that always felt tangible.

Tonight that energy felt amplified. As soon as Hunter had parked his truck in the back lot and unloaded all his gear along with the rest of his band, he already felt like tonight was going to be the start of something. He had that kind of nervous, weightlessness in his chest and limbs and lungs that he’d get when something good was going to happen. He’d gotten the same kind of feeling before he passed his driving test, before ClayShore’s very first gig and sometimes he’d get it before dates with girls. It seemed to happen whenever he knew that what he did in the next few hours would have some sort of lasting impact, like the universe was presenting an opportunity for him, one that he’d better not fuck up.

That was the night Hunter first saw Travis.

It could have been easy to miss him, the rest of Travis’s band—A metal band named WidowFall— were all bright-colored hair, exaggerated makeup, larger than life performances. Travis was muted in comparison but Hunter noticed him.

He noticed him at first because as a bassist himself, the bass is what he’d instinctively listen for and the bass in their first song was catchy. Travis didn’t just play roots, his playing was rhythmically complex, more like poetry than math. And the way he moved, not static in one place, he stalked the stage, bass slung low, stomping out a beat in his boots for his hands and fingers to follow, whip-crack pops, exaggerated slides.

Hunter noticed everything else after that. Travis wore his hair long, bleach blonde with dark roots—it hung in his eyes, hid his face. But when his hair shifted, Hunter caught a glimpse of gray-blue eyes and the curl of a sardonic smile, a smile that he wore the entire time he played. Hunter recognized the look, recognized the feeling; Travis wasn’t just talented, it was clear to Hunter that Travis loved making music.

At that point the rest of the band was just noise. And Hunter felt the music that connected them like a thread, stretched out from Travis’s fingers, traveled and passed through the air and the crowd and then ended in Hunter’s chest, pulsed like a heartbeat.

Hunter felt like he knew him.

When WidowFall’s set ended Hunter wanted to track where their members went so he could get a chance to talk shop with their bassist, he wanted to ask him about how he got his tone so sludgy. But ClayShore was up next and Ben and Kelly were already moving through the room to climb the stage.

Some bands would leave after their sets but a lot of them would stay to listen to the other bands. He watched WidowFall’s members scatter through the bar, their bassist loping through the crowd and finding a place to stand to watch the stage, settling in against one of the brick walls. Hunter was glad he was sticking around, was glad the first song of their set had a good bass line so he could (admittedly) show off.

And Hunter could always count on his bandmates to put on a good show too. He’d known them all since middleschool, known them since Kelly first showed them albums by Primus and Tool, and since Hunter had shown them Metallica and Dream Theater. Music had gotten into their blood then and they’d formed ClayShore even while Landon still sang in church on Sundays and Ben played drums for the same church’s worship group. Not that they were a christian band, far from it. Sure Ben and Landon had their traditions and family obligations on Sunday, but tonight, a Friday, their music would be loud and angry and Landon would drop a handful of f-bombs like he was about to now:

“How the fuck y’all doin tonight Charlotte?” Landon asked the crowd.

This was the moment when Hunter would start to focus inward, had to—had to drown out everything else. Drown out Landon’s charismatic call-outs and crowd work that all the girls seemed to like, ignore Kelly’s exuberant and expansive use of a very small stage, drown out even the crowd itself, the movement, the noise. He’d focus on what he was supposed to—the foundation that he and Ben would map out with drums and bass for Landon and Kelly to build up on.

Sometimes his mind would drift though; Right now he was thinking of summers before his father died.

As soon as he was old enough, Hunter had started working summers at his daddy’s garage. Early in the morning, even on Sundays, Hunter would roll out of bed before his mom and sister were awake. His dad would have the green Stanley thermos full of black coffee ready by the back door and Hunter would hop into his dad’s silver and blue Chevy Silverado, the same one he drove now.

Alan Wright would play a Garth Brooks cassette, or maybe he’d play Susan Ashton if it was Sunday. Hunter knew the order of the songs on both cassettes by heart even though the only time he’d hear them was in his daddy’s truck when they drove together like this. If they were missing church, his dad would tell him that you could learn more about God in music than in a sermon anyway, but to never mention that to Hunter’s mama, she’d “throw a fit.”

There was something to be said about that though, about finding God in music. Maybe it won’t god with a capital ‘G’ anymore for Hunter (all that had changed after his mama got sick) but it was something significant.

It was wind in the loblolly pines and gumball trees, it was the sound of a screen door squeaking on its hinges, it was the feeling of the sun on your back.

The moment he started playing the first song of their set he was thinking about all those things.

He was thinking about why they called their band the name they did: Ben’s grandma’s house on the lake where they used to swim all the time, the beach not sand, but red clay so dark, it’d stain the soles of your shoes.

Fingers walking down the pickups, hammering that familiar marching tone; they’d played this same song for years and it was easy to settle into the drone of it, execute a rhythmic weight behind Kelly’s wailing riffs, something to lend emphasis. He felt himself smile, couldn’t help it, fell into the trance of it all, closed his eyes.

“10 miles from county lines” Landon sang.

“Ain’t got no bus or railroad

How will we get home now?

It feels like forever.“

After their set ended, Hunter found WidowFall’s bassist smoking alone in the alley behind Eddie’s.

“Killer set,” Hunter told him, hoping to settle into some sort of conversation, hoping that he’d recognize Hunter as a fellow musician and not just some fan.

Travis had looked up at him. Now that they were closer, Hunter could focus on features and the other bassist’s were almost androgynous— long lashes, the delicate slant of his eyes and mouth inviting and almost feminine. But the width of his jaw and shoulders, the prominent veins in his arms and hands more masculine.

“Thanks, but I’m just the bassist,” Travis said.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about actually,” Hunter said. “I’m a bassist too."

Hunter watched the realization dawn in the other man’s eyes.

“Oh! You just played—the prog metal band right? ClayShore?”

“That’s right,” Hunter said with some measure of pride at the recognition; three other bands had played tonight but his had been good enough to remember.

“You guys were good,” Travis said and he sounded like he meant it. “Bass line in that first song was real pretty with those minor triads.”

“Shit, you’re speaking my language now,” Hunter laughed, no way in hell Kelly or Ben would drop terms like ‘minor triads’. “I gotta say though," Hunter continued. "The way you play? Not sure if I’ve heard anything like it, at least not at small-time gigs like this.”

The bassist smiled at him, took another drag of his cigarette.

“Smoke with me?” he asked Hunter and Hunter nodded, then realized he’d left his coat in his truck.

“Hate to ask, but can I bum a cigarette?”

“Sure thing,” Travis said, reaching into the front pocket of his worn army jacket and pulling out a crumpled paper carton.

The cigarette he passed Hunter was all black and smelled faintly sweet, Hunter usually only smoked Winstons.

“Ain’t had one of these,” he admitted, turning it in his hand. “All the goths seem to smoke em though; Somethin special about them or are they just black cigarettes?”

Travis passed him a lime green BIC and grinned. Up close like this, Hunter could see that one of his canines was chipped, an imperfection that made his smile seem warmer, less like he was unreachable, more like he was someone you’d known for forever. Hunter felt his heart flip in his chest unexpectedly when their fingers brushed.

Still finalizing my track list but here's what I have so far

Small Town Suicide is their first one and it's really well-received. It's Travis's earlier stuff so a lot of it is about where he's from, lots of lyrics inspired by isolation and it strikes a cord with a lot of kids from small towns. The references to his trauma are a little more vague and open-ended for the most part (see: Helix) Lithium is about being bi-polar

Most fans say Pretty Dead is Travis at his best but also his most erratic and angriest. The conflict in the novel is at its height when he writes most of these lyrics but it's also when he and Hunter start dating so there's some other themes in this one too. He doesn't pull the punches about the source of his trauma (I'll share the lyrics for Wraith Hate at some point, that one spells it out very clearly) He gets more political with Bible Belt (A song he and Hunter wrote together) and I hate all you Republican bitchesSeveral songs confirm all the speculation about him being gay in this album too. 

Summer Storm is 2 years after Pretty Dead and comes out between then and the epilogue. It's after the demon is gone so while there's still some anger, still some struggles with mental illness (Dead-Set on Dying is about struggling with suicidal ideation even when things are going well), Travis's style has really matured in this album and there's more perspective and layers in his lyrics. Also a lot more clean vocals (although admittedly some of this is because he's injured during the demon confrontation/exorcism and is still recovering so he has to take it a bit easier-- note the new throat scar here ). Most of the band thinks it's some of their collective best work both technically and in song-writing ability. Thematically it's very much based on his new life in the south rather than just his past in the Midwest.